Describe your business without using the word "website"

"I have a website that...", "Our website is almost ready", "visit our website", "I run a website".

I see this often in LinkedIn and Twitter profiles and when talking to my new clients.

Websites were commercialized over 20 years ago. They are still a multi-keystroke commodity that rely on search engines to be discovered.  There's more SEO companies on every "internet" street corner than there are Starbucks. 

Classics (Photo credit: Rob Ketcherside)

If your business is solely digitally present on a website, it's like saying 8 track and fax machines are still effective means of playing music and sending documents. That same generation of users has now gone mobile for content, services, music and file sharing. 

I can understand that if your business provides a digital service, a website could be needed but have you considered being a mobile-first company instead? Our own HockeyGPS service was a web service while the app was being developed. After one year of app service, we shut the web service down. Only 10% of the arena searches were done on the website. 

If your website is mainly for product and information, how many clicks and keystrokes does it take just to find your phone number, address or email address? Add more keystrokes just to make a connection by phone or email. By comparison, your phone number in your own app will take about 2-3 taps to locate and dial. 

Does your advertising and brochures only include yourcompany.com?  That's another indicator that you are behind on digital marketing.  Access to information through 'www' is slowly winding down.  Digital leaders are using touch, visual sensing, audio sensing and proximity sensing as ways for their market to access information via mobile apps. 

So stop promoting your company just using the word "website". If its a service (software or server driven), explain to people that you have an app that runs on multiple devices.  If your site is mainly content, start promoting across social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram), blogs, in digital magazine format (we use MagCloud) and of course on your own app.  While I have seen good company websites, I have seen even better content marketing from others.  Having a solid content marketing plan helps optimize those digital resources that are available to you and your brand.